Schedule

Why You Should Go

Scandinavia and the New Europe explores how European countries are coping with some of the most important issues facing advanced industrial countries today: economic and financial crisis, cross-border migration, globalization and political integration, and environmental challenges. The five Scandinavian (or Nordic) countries – Denmark, Finland, Iceland, Norway, and Sweden – have in many ways joined in the larger European efforts to deal with these issues, but also have their own histories and cultures that in a number of areas have led them to develop distinctive and sometimes unique approaches.

This seminar will enable you to learn about the issues currently facing all of Europe (and in many ways the United States as well) but also specifically about the roles of the Scandinavian countries in this new Europe. The seminar will provide a background to Scandinavian history and society and will thus equip you to understand the positions of these countries in today’s European Union and other European efforts and organizations.

Copenhagen is a perfect setting in which to explore these issues. Scandinavia’s largest city is a vibrant and cosmopolitan community that is at the same time compact, lively, culturally diverse, full of fascinating history, and one of the safest of all European cities. Its proximity to Sweden, Germany, and other parts of the European continent allows for easy and inexpensive travel to other parts of Scandinavia and beyond.

Meet the Professor:

Kaare Strom is Distinguished Professor of Political Science and has taught at UC San Diego since 1991. He was born and raised in Norway and came to the United States as an undergraduate. He received his BA from St. Olaf College (Minnesota) and his Ph.D. from Stanford University. Before coming to UCSD he taught at several other universities, including the University of Bergen in Norway. Strom teaches in the areas of Comparative and European Politics, and has published extensively on political parties, Scandinavian politics, and the institutions of parliamentary democracy. His most recent book is "The Madisonian Turn: Political Parties and Parliamentary Democracies in Nordic Europe," which he co-edited with Torbjorn Bergman of Sodertorn University, Sweden. Strom was EAP study center director in Lund, Sweden, and Copenhagen from 2002 to 2004. For several years he taught in the Joint Summer School on Critical World Issues in Lund.